Street Artists, Paris

2 more images

Nobody knows exactly how many musicians use the street as their stage. This traditon is an old one. Even the great Edith Piaf started singing for change on the Paris streets.

We found the PARIS-INDIAN street performers near The Eiffel Tower were really good.

Paris street performers have, like these Indians, traveled long and far to play here.

4 more images

These shows are very off the cuff and can happen anywhere in Paris. When out and about, keep your ears and eyes open and you most certainly will come across an impromptu spot of song and dance somewhere. This one happened just in front of the Pantheon in the 5th.

On our 3rd Day in Paris we took the Metro to the Sacre Coeur area. Upon ascending from the Metro station we came upon this quartet of senior musicians in a small park.

After downloading this photo I studied it a little more and came up with the following questions.

1) Are the 2 girls at the right enjoying the singing of the guy at right or the banjo player?

2) How long have these 4 been doing this as a group?

3) If you are driving down the street at left pay no attention to the brown walking signs since you can't turn right anyway down the one way street

4) Is that the quartet's logo on the top of the tuba?

Just some questions I had!! Has anyone seen this group and have answers for me??

1 more image

At a very different point in the musical spectrum, this group of young musicians were playing to an appreciative audience in a somewhat run-down section of the arches surrounding the Place des Vosges.

I presume the group may well be from a music school and, from VT tips, it seems quite a few others have encountered different groups of classical musicians here. Check Vter Nemorino’s tip for a listing of reports . These musicians were playing one of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos – and doing an excellent job of it. You hear about matching wine to meals: this was matching music to locale, if ever there was!

Had I not been bent on covering as much touristic ground as possible, I would have been very tempted to stay and soak up the ambience. Whether they are there daily I do not know, but my visit was on a Sunday.

Paris has a range of buskers, in all manner of locations and with a wide range of talent.

The sounds of jazz music wafted out to meet me as I walked across the pedestrian-only Solferino bridge near the Musée d’Orsay. Under the Quai Francois Mitterand near the Tuileries Gardens, I found the source: a one man band. There was nobody else in sight, but he was determinedly blowing his trumpet, playing his accordion and hitting his drums long before I appeared. He was not bad, either.

I left a few coins in his hat, stopped to listen for a while then took my photo, receiving a smile in return. As I walked into the distance, he still was playing to a non-existent audience. I’d like to think the photo conveys the loneliness of this solitary busking jazzman.

1 more image

Paris will not be Paris without the painting artists in the streets. Especially at the Place du Tertre in
Montmartre and the bridges near the Ile de Cité you can't miss them. Mostly lots of people are standing around the painting artist to look if the painting looks like the 'model'.

The artists have all their own style, making caricature drawings to a natural looking paintings. Some of the paintings are extremily good look-alikes, but some images could also depict anyone around or one of my neighbours at home.

1 more image

Another magnificent place to spot streetartists is the square in front of Centre Pompidou. Especially around 18:00 o´clock there always are artists showing their skills. There are painters, comediants, living statues, musicians... And because the Forum des Halles is close, there always is enough audience to watch all this.

1 more image

In front of the Notre Dame we saw these amazing street artists. There was a huge crowd standing around them, seeing them do their tricks on their skates. They had made a jump out of wooden board and they jumped over a stick at a height of up to 2,5 metres! It was a really cool sight, especially because the crowd started to applaude after every jump. Fortunately the French policemen accepted it all.

So the square and the bridge in front of the Notre Dame is a përfect place to see street artists in the evening hours...